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It appears to huff n puff when I am streaming a video off the web and the Mrs. is streaming a video off that machine to the TV downstairs, and the machine is recording a TV show or two. It has a dual tuner TV card.

I loaded the widget that comes with Win 7 that shows the percentage of CPU use and memory use and the fan runs the hardest when the CPU is running 65% and really hard at 85-100%. Plus there are times when it will go from 85% to 20% and back to 80% in a blink, and the fan drops and revs in lock step.

Do I need a better chip? The mobo will support up to a quad core, and what heat issues does that bring into play?

Do I need a different heat sync device since the thing works closer to normal when the house is at 69 degrees?

I considered the Coolmaster 212 but I think the weight of it when the mobo is vertical would put stresses on the mobo. Am I wrong there? Is there a better air cooled heat sync device that would not add that kind of vertical stress to the mobo when gravity is introduced?

I considered the Corsair H50, or H60 or H70 liquid cooler.
Pros: Good reviews on keeping the chip cool.
Cons, If it springs a leak, electricity and water still don’t mix
If the pump goes bad in a couple of….timeframes could I burn up the chip?
By removing the heat sync fan am I removing airflow across the north bridge, south bridge, and other bridges on the mobo?

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

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phillpower2

Posted 30 April 2011 - 02:49 AM

phillpower2

Tech Staff

Technician

20,025 posts

Hi Joel DearingStock coolers and heat sinks are adequate unless you are overclocking, however noisy CPU fans are a different matter and need investigation, is this your issue or do you just feel the fan is being over worked?You have not said that you have an add on video card only It has a dual tuner TV card do you mean the MBs onboard graphics ports? If this is the case fitting a suitable add on pci-e video card should alleviate the problem.Onboard video chips are fine for basic HTPC and general use but I would not subject them to prolonged video streaming use as it puts stress on other components such as the CPU and fan, Ram and PSU etc.

Joel Dearing

Posted 30 April 2011 - 09:43 AM

Joel Dearing

Member

Topic Starter

Member

28 posts

Thank you for the reply. I feel the fan is being overworked. More details, the computer is not overclocked, I am using the onboard graphics for my 24 in Gateway monitor connected by HDMI cable, and there is no GPU. Other cards in the system are a four port USB card, the Hauppauge Win TV HVR 2250 dual tuner TV card, and a Creative Labs SB X-FI Xtreme Audio sound card, and that is it. The pitch on the TV card is that is has onboard Mpeg encoders to take the load off of the CPU. Could be true, could be marketing.

Just this morning when I turned the computer on, let it boot up and while I am off doing other things, and have not logged on yet, the fan is running fast while it is at the log in screen. And the computer is not processing anything other than the weekly backup. That backup is done with Windows software, backing up to the D: drive.

While I am typing this the CPU fan revs and drops, revs and drops. I notice on the Win 7 "chip and memory monitor" widget, the CPU usage is at 55%, then drops to 7%, then up to 40% and down to 14% and all I have open is AOL, a Firefox browser outside of AOL (to compose this) and Device Manager, and as mentioned it is doing the backup in the background.

Other details: I have another computer with the same mobo, same amount of memory, and a little bigger/newer/faster chip, still a dual core, I think it is an Intel 5500, and it runs fine, I never hear the CPU fan rev like the one I am talking to you about. It does a lot of the same functions, records TV, streams it to the TV downstairs, e-mail, word processing, no gaming on either machine.

Just to make sure I have my terminology correct on streaming, the computer will record a TV show, write a WTV file to disk. The Sony flat screen downstairs, through a local wireless network will see the list of WTV files that have been recorded, we select one of those shows from the list on the TV and it plays it. Do you consider that streaming?

phillpower2

Posted 30 April 2011 - 10:13 AM

phillpower2

Tech Staff

Technician

20,025 posts

Download and run Speedfan from http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php take a screen-shot and include it with your next post so that your temps and voltages can be checked.It is possible to use Speedfan to manually set your fans to a constant rpm, set them to the max and then decrease them until you get the most quiet and stable temperatures, this should determine whether the fan is failing.

Just to make sure I have my terminology correct on streaming, the computer will record a TV show, write a WTV file to disk. The Sony flat screen downstairs, through a local wireless network will see the list of WTV files that have been recorded, we select one of those shows from the list on the TV and it plays it. Do you consider that streaming?

From Wikipedia;

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.[note 1] The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself. The distinction is usually applied to media that are distributed over telecommunications networks, as most other delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g., radio, television) or inherently non-streaming (e.g., books, video cassettes, audio CDs). The verb 'to stream' is also derived from this term, meaning to deliver media in this manner. Internet television is a commonly streamed medium.

Live streaming, more specifically, means taking the media and broadcasting it live over the Internet. The process involves a camera for the media, an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher where the streams are made available to potential end-users and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. The media can then be viewed by end-users live

Attached Files

phillpower2

Posted 01 May 2011 - 05:06 PM

phillpower2

Tech Staff

Technician

20,025 posts

Screen shot 2 clearly shows that the CPU fan is not coping very well, the CPU temps are too high, until you can replace the CPU fan consider manually setting the fan to 100% when the computer is under load, replacing the fan a.s.a.p will also give you a chance to clean out any heat trapping dust from the heat sink and inside the case.
I would like you to download and run Everest from http://www.filehippo...d_everest_home/
Open it.
1: In left pane expand Computer folder.
2: Click once on Summary
3: In upper menu, go to Report
4: And then to Quick Report-Summary
5: Save it in text file, and paste it in your next post.
Click the + by computer, click on Sensor. Get a screenshot and post it so your temps and voltages can be checked.
Both screen shots show the +12V reading to be lower than 11V, this is too low so needs to be double checked using Everest.

Joel Dearing

Posted 01 May 2011 - 06:55 PM

Joel Dearing

Member

Topic Starter

Member

28 posts

Thanks again for the feedback. When I started to troubleshoot why the fan was running so hard, I opened the case, took out the heat sync and cleaned the dust from the fins and the fans, and any other dust in the case. It was not too bad, I have seen worse. You suggested I change the heat sync fan, would I be better served to change the heat sync for better heat control. In my original post I asked these questions on heat sync?
I considered the Coolmaster 212 but I think the weight of it when the mobo is vertical would put stresses on the mobo. Am I wrong there? Is there a better air cooled heat sync device that would not add that kind of vertical stress to the mobo when gravity is introduced?

I considered the Corsair H50, or H60 or H70 liquid cooler.
Pros: Good reviews on keeping the chip cool.
Cons, If it springs a leak, electricity and water still don’t mix
If the pump goes bad in a couple of….timeframes could I burn up the chip?
By removing the heat sync fan am I removing airflow across the north bridge, south bridge, and other bridges on the mobo?

Based on your suggestions I do need to change an aspect of the cooling system.

phillpower2

Posted 02 May 2011 - 03:04 AM

phillpower2

Tech Staff

Technician

20,025 posts

Sorry I should have asked you not to include the debug report (it was late here in the UK when I post )Can you please edit the debug report out and put your temps and voltages in, see the bold text how to obtain the readings below;

I would like you to download and run Everest from http://www.filehippo...d_everest_home/ Open it. 1: In left pane expand Computer folder. 2: Click once on Summary 3: In upper menu, go to Report 4: And then to Quick Report-Summary 5: Save it in text file, and paste it in your next post. Click the + by computer, click on Sensor. Get a screenshot and post it so your temps and voltages can be checked. Both screen shots show the +12V reading to be lower than 11V, this is too low so needs to be double checked using Everest.

Can you confirm if this MB http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813130231 is the same as yours.If it is I can only see 2 fan headers on the MB, a 3 pin and a 4 pin, is your CPU fan on the 3 or 4 pin header!